Do You Wanna Get Out Alive?

Keary lied. 

He'd said that this was gonna be another easy-peasy raid, that it would be just like the other ones that they'd been to so far. 

But there were many more people here than he'd led them to believe. What's more, they'd all been ready, armed to the teeth and already on guard and bristling before the Daggers even stepped a toe into the compound. 

Not that Mikka minded though. 

Mikka didn't mind at all. 

Mikka was having the fucking time of her LIFE!!!  

She bowled straight into a clustered group of armed men with her staff spinning, clearing herself a wide circumference, and let loose a screech of exhilaration. 

"Wheeeee!!" 

This was FUN!! She was never gonna curse Keary ever again for only giving her boring jobs. Or maybe she would. He'd CLEARLY been holding out on them and keeping all the awesome-possum stuff for himself. HMPH! At least he'd taken pity on widdle ol' her after she'd had that horrendous bout of being completely out of it. 

And now she was back! In!! Action, BABY!!! If it really was Mackie posting and sending all that shit, maybe she did have something to thank him for after all. 

... Nah, fuck that!! Blast that crazy motherfucker to the end of the galaxy and back, she was still gonna literally burst both his eyeballs AND his other balls like balloons if she ever saw him again. She just wished she had done that from the very beginning. She should've, but she had been too smitten to admit the truth about Mackie's character to herself. And honestly, there were some times that he had been sweet as well. 

But the very first time he'd laid a finger on her, she should have bitten those same fingers off and spat them in his face. Then none of the rest of it would've happened. But now—Oh ho ho, now, if she saw him now, she was gonna— 

There was a flurry of wind behind her, followed by the sound of sharp metal slicing through skin and flesh, and then a choked scream. Mikka whipped around to see that Kumiko had darted up behind her, cutting off an assailant who had somehow managed to sneak up unnoticed. 

"Kiki. Don't get distracted." Kumiko's voice was even despite the dark blood dripping down the blades of her fans. "Are you still thinking about him?" 

Stunned by both the attack she hadn't seen coming and the point-blank, almost clairvoyant question her friend had shot at her, Mikka's first instinct was to lie. "Huh, what? No??" 

Kumiko's gaze held, unblinking even as the raven-haired girl swung her weapon again, cutting another attacker dead in his tracks. Mikka gave a sigh. Koko was stoic, but the two girls had been acquainted long enough that both knew when one was lying, and when the other was aware of it. 

"Alright alright, maybe I was, a little." She jabbed the butt of her staff right into someone's stomach, then flipped the stick to crush his nose with the other end. "I was just thinking of all the ways I'd de-ball him if I ever see him again." 

"As you should." Satisfied by Mikka's answer, Kumiko finally turned away, her curtain of black hair swinging heavy across her back. "I'll help." 

Mikka grinned widely. "'Course you will! You can slice off his dick and I'll smash it to pulp in front of his face! HAHAHA!" She shoved another opponent backward before hitting him in the throat. Take THAT, you nasty gooey piece of shit! 

But the satisfaction was short-lived. 

Almost immediately, another man lunged at her, his mouth open in a snarl so wide that Mikka could actually see the back of his throat. 

Ew. 

And just like that, she tired of the exercise. 

"Arghhh, how long more is this gonna take?" she complained as she thwacked her staff into the side of Big Maw's head, sending him flying. "Why does it feel like there's more and more of them?? Where are the rest of us, why's it just us two dealing with all these morons??" 

"Three," a voice called out close by. 

Between fending off more assailants, Mikka hopped high to peek across the sea of heads and ugly faces—so ugly, ugh, it was a crime!—and could just make out a figure with short-cropped curly hair, fighting to hold his own space among the throng. 

"Need a hand there, Snake?" 

"No?" Shun huffed as he disposed of two opponents. "Why?" 

Mikka stuck out her lower lip as if pondering. "Mmm, because you're more of a range attack kinda guy, and melée doesn't really seem to be your thing?" 

"That's… nonsense!" Shun huffed, looking a little out of breath. Before Mikka could deal another jibe, he called out, "Joker! Joker, where are you?" 

Another man went down with a gurgling scream, his throat fountaining blood as Kumiko turned away from him. "He followed Steel in there, I think." She gestured toward a door at the far end, from which more dark-clothed men were spewing. 

"Ahh fuck! Just how many more of them are there??" Mikka screamed. "I want to go home already!" 

The moment the words left her mouth, she realised that she really shouldn't have announced such a thing so openly. In reaction to her waning motivation, the mob around them pressed in all the more fiercely. 

Look what you've done, you tofu brain! she chided herself. This is going to be so much harder to get out of now that—

"LOOK OUT BELOW!" 

The fighting froze as all heads whipped up toward the sound of Nigel's voice, just in time to see two bodies plummet from the second floor. Mikka looked on, mesmerised, unable to look away as they plunged groundward—

Someone caught her and spun her around, just a split second before she heard a loud and sickening crack. 

"What—" 

Kumiko shushed her gently. "This isn't something you need to see right now." 

If it had been anyone else, Mikka would have squirmed out of their grasp and turned to look anyway, out of some magnetic pull of morbid curiosity. But it was Koko, so she made a small sound and burrowed closer, squeezing her eyes shut. 

Kumiko's own midnight gaze was fixed on the two figures on the ground, in the centre of a large splatter of blood. She watched, tense, as one of them stirred and rose slowly to his feet. Only when she confirmed who had survived, did she let out the breath she had been holding. 

"It's over." Keary's voice was low, but somehow carried through the silent crowd. "Leave." 

A murmur ran through the men around, and, as if in response, the broken figure at his feet let out a feeble moan. 

At the sound, the murmur swelled, but was immediately squelched when Keary bent down, and, with a swift move, embedded his blade fully into the man's forehead. The courtyard was deathly still as he straightened up again. 

"He's dead. Now get out, or die with him." 

...